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Matrix - Revisited

The two sequels were fun watching in the theater. You just couldn't watch them 25 times (and more) like the first one.

Wonder weapons of World War II

Germany had a reputation as a scientifically advanced nation well before the outbreak of hostilities in 1939. At the beginning of the war, the Germans had a significant advantage in many areas of military technology, although it lost the lead, for a variety of reasons, as the war progressed.

Thinking the war was already won, Hitler placed less emphasis on weapons development. Later, when the war turned against them, Germany turned to new, highly sophisticated weaponry in a desperate bid to turn the tide. These wonder weapons, or wunderwaffe, mostly reached the field of combat too late to make a difference, although some, like the V2 rockets, were deployed and were superior to anything possessed by the Allies at the time. Most of these weapons were very advanced for their era and with the exception of the gigantic tanks, were all developed by other counties in the subsequent decades.

German engineers worked on a number of designs for super-heavy tanks and the Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus was the heaviest model of which a working prototype was made during the war. This tank weighed in at around 180 tonnes and this ended up being its principal problem.

The Fieseler Fi 103, more familiar as the V-1, from the German vergeltungswaffe or vengeance weapon, was the world’s first cruise missile. The V-1 was powered by jets and carried an 1875 lb warhead with a range of 125 miles, the first ones being launched at England on June 13, 1944, just after D Day.

The vortex gun was designed to try and take advantage of the known fact that air turbulence could bring down large aircraft and break them into pieces. The vortex gun’s shells, containing coal-dust and a slow-burning explosive in the center, were supposed to create an artificial whirlwind or tornado, which would make enemy airplanes lose control and thus fall from the sky.

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Shoe's next?

Times of Indiatalks about the recent phenomenon of flying shoes:
And shoes can be expensive items. So, perhaps as the global financial downturn kicks in, the standard of shoe being hurled will drop, with battered old sneakers that were going in the bin anyway being given a more memorable send-off.

Or, if it's meant to be an insult, is it a case of the worse the footwear, the better?

And India Uncut sees the coining of a new term:
We all know what it means to throw the book at someone, and now it seems that dictionaries will soon have to make space for a new phrase—‘throwing the shoe.’ The origin would be the journalist who threw a shoe at George W Bush a few months ago, and it seems to be becoming a trend now that a journalist in a press conference has hurled a shoe at P Chidambaram. (In a PC, at PC, as it happens.)
Do we see a new entry in POD soon?

Recent scenes from Afghanistan

Since he took office in January, President Barack Obama has ordered an additional 21,000 U.S. troops to be deployed to Afghanistan, which will bring the full U.S. deployment there to a total of 60,000 troops, joining 39,000 coalition troops from 43 countries. The U.S. administration plans to impose benchmarks for progress on both Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, who struggle with problems tied to tribal rivalries, illegal drug production and distribution, religious factions, general instability and poverty. Collected here are photographs from the past few months of the situation in Afghanistan and the lives that continue to be affected by it. (43 photos total)
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Don't Let the Recession Hurt Your Pets

According to NPR’s All Things Considered, the number of domestic pets being surrendered to animal shelters has risen dramatically in the past year since the recession began. The shelters, overcrowded even before the financial crisis began, have been stretched to breaking point, and are forced to euthanize millions of loving and healthy dogs, cats, rabbits, and other domestic pets.

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Yahoo! Answers or 911?

Thinking I should take her to the hospital. she's dizzy, falling over, feeling like she's about to throw up; hasn't yet though. Her speech is slurring and it's taking her minutes to figure out what word she wants to say. Take her to the hospital right!?

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Orthodox Israeli newspapers Photo-shop out female Cabinet ministers

The daily Yated Neeman digitally changed the photo, moving two male ministers into the places formerly occupied by the women.

The weekly Shaa Tova simply blacked the women out, in a photo reprinted today by the mainstream daily Maariv.

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Hitler's Flying Saucers - A Guide to German Flying Discs of the Second World War

Dr. Erb was on the cutting edge of several technologies according to this report. None of these technologies was especially exciting in 1946, however. Jets, rockets and atomic energy where the hot-ticket items of the time. Nobody cared about new sources of electrical energy. The USA had plenty of electricity and plenty of oil to generate more. It was also known by then that atomic power could be applied to generate even more electricity.Nobody cared about Dr. Erb's experiments listed under item (iii)"Apparatus for conversion of residual heat into electrical energy" or item (viii) "Electrical sources of energy of various kinds" or even item (ix) "Apparatus for turning the energy of the sun's rays into electrical energy". Since nobody cared about these things, there was really no reason not to list them in the summary report. Their significance would only be realized a generation later during the "energy crisis" of the mid-1970s and by then it was too late to censor the report. One can only wonder where this research would have led if it funding had continued over the next thirty years. Or did it continue in secret?


More:

The F.B.I. operates within the USA and usually does not concern itself with foreign matters unless they have meaning for the internal security of the United States. Could the reason that this report was taken and retained for so many years be that it did, in fact, have meaning for the internal security of the United States? Did it have something to do with the flying saucers seen over Texas at the time which also stopped motor vehicles?

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Testicle festivals

The idea of a Testicle Festival intrigued me. I thought it sounded like an odd, but very unique, idea. Turns out, what I thought was an unusual idea is much more common than I realized. Testicle Festivals appear to be a popular fundraising venue.

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Boy calls 911 to do his Math

Abstract:

Operator: Alright, what’s the problem?
Boy: Um, you have to help me with my math.
Operator: Okay. Tell me what the math is.
Boy: Okay. 16 take away 8 is what?

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Inflation: Is it bad?

Inflation. It’s bad right? When prices rise your money is worth less and nobody wants to see their hard earned cash decline in value. But what is inflation anyway and what are its root causes? Turns out the situation is not as straightforward as it first appears.

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